Hotd 2x06 - Tumblr Posts

BABY STORMCLOUD HAS MADE HIS HOTD DEBUT

I LOVE HIM MY SWEET LITTLE BABY BOY PLEASE LET ME GIVE HIM A HUG

After watching Hotd 2x06 I now feel the overwhelming urge to get a cat so I can name it Seasmoke

The best part of HOTD 2x06 was definitely Caraxes shrieking in the background while Daemon and Alys were talking.

Alys: Wait three days and the winds will shift Caraxes: THREE DAYS???????? WE’RE NOT GONNA DO IT, RIGHT DAEMON? DAEMON? DAEMON PLEASE TELL ME WE ARE NOT STAYING FOR THREE MORE DAYS. WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE LETS GO HOME. NO COME BACK I DONT LIKE IT HERE. DAEMON I WANNA GO BACK TO SYRAX. YOU SAID THIS WOULD BE FUN, WELL ITS NOT FUCKING FUN. I DIDNT EVEN GET TO BURN THOSE PEOPLE. WHY DIDNT YOU LET ME BURN THEM DAEMON???? LETS JUST GO HOME. WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING TO THE CRAZY LADY. SHES LITERALLY THE ONE CAUSING YOUR VISIONS. Please? Please can we go home? Well fine! But I bet Aemon would have let me burn the Brackens. Caraxes: *disappointed screeching* Daemon:…

Where King's Landing Gets Its Food (and Why the Blockade of the Gullet Has No Effect on Overall Food Security)

King's Landing is the capital city of Westeros. With a population of roughly half a million people, it needs to get its food from somewhere. But where?

In close proximity to the Crownlands and King's Landing is the Reach. The Reach has incredibly fertile farmland and is responsible for growing food for the majority of the realm. Most notably, this is where the majority of King's Landing's food supply comes from:

As you can see on the map, the Reach and King's Landing are connected via multiple direct land routes:

At the time of the start of the Dance of the Dragons, the land connecting King's Landing to the Reach was held by the Greens, and later, most of the Reach had declared for the Greens. Therefore, there would have been little issue in continuing the transport of food from the Reach and into King's Landing. This map is roughly how the map was divided at the start of the Dance (however, following the campaign towards Rook's Rest, the Greens had claimed areas north of Kingslanding held by the Darklyns and other Black supporters, giving even more of the area surrounding King's Landing to the Greens):

Since the majority of food for King's Landing comes from the Reach, and since the Reach and the areas connecting it to King's Landing are held by the Greens, food supply should not be an issue, nor should a blockade of the Gullet have any significant impact on the ability of the smallfolk in King's Landing to access food.

What, then, is the impact of the blockade? What comes into King's Landing on normal occasions and therefore might not get through during a blockade? Since King's Landings gets all the food it needs from the Reach, Blackwater Bay and trade and passenger routes that run through it are most commonly bringing travelers from other bays or Essos and goods from the Free Cities such as spices, silk, and other luxuries. This map helps to visualize the trade that occurs in the Narrow Sea:

The primary goal of the blockade of the Gullet by the Blacks and the Velaryon fleet was likely more about controlling the waters of Blackwater Bay and guaranteeing no naval presence of the Greens could establish itself near King's Landing, rather than a concerted attempt to keep goods out and away from the city, due to the lack of impact this would have on supplies and resources for the war effort.

In the books, the blockade does not result in issues in food security, as food comes from the Reach and not by sea. Although it may have had an impact on certain industries and access to employment, which could have indirectly led to issues in some groups of people being able to afford food, by no means did it result in a lack of food. Therefore, there was no cause for riots this early into the war, and in fact, none actually did occur while the Greens held King's Landing.

Riots due to food security did eventually happen in King's Landing, but this was years into the conflict when, due to the burning and destruction of crops in the war and the disruption of land routes by which to transport food, there was less food coming into the city. At the same time, smallfolk were subjected to high taxes by the Blacks who held the city, which compounded rising food prices amid the scarcity. This resulted in riots against the Targaryens, and following the death of Queen Helaena, the smallfolk stormed the Dragonpit, killed the dragons, and drove Rhaenyra from the Red Keep and to her ultimate death.

In the show, the blockade apparently results in mass starvation after only a couple of weeks, despite the city realistically getting food from the Reach and certainly having stores of food to last during possible siege. When word is spread of the Greens' supposed feasts while people starve and the people see the sheeps brought to the Dragonpit to feed the dragons, and when Rhaenyra sends a boat full of fresh produce from Dragonstone, a volcanic island hundreds of miles away, the smallfolk forget that the Blacks are responsible for the blockade in the first place and praise her generosity. Then, they attack the two Green Queens when they are leaving the Sept, throwing food at them despite the apparent food insecurity and shouting about their true Queen Rhaenyra.

Also, despite the blockade being an issue, and despite Caraxes and Meleys out of the picture, Aemond doesn't use Vhagar to destroy the blockade. Nor do the Greens use the fact that Rhaenyra and the Blacks ordered the blockade to their advantage, despite them using other events to help themselves in previous episodes. There is no explanation of why it would be that food was not coming from the Reach. The Blacks were not attacking supply or food trains along the routes on land, nor is it mentioned that anyone was blocking the routes and not allowing food to pass through these land routes. Ostensibly, we're supposed to believe that the city imports the entirety of its food supply from overseas despite having lands under its jurisdiction from which to get food.

Why move the riot up in the overall progression of the story, as the cost of in-universe logic and consistency? Moving it so it happens while the Greens are in power allows for the show to demonstrate how the smallfolk hate the Greens. Despite season 2 episode 2 showing the smallfolk mourning for and sympathizing with the two Green Queens, they would apparently rather support their "true queen" who they believe had a 6 year old decapitated in his bed and who currently is causing the food insecurity with her blockade all because of one boat of food being sent through and Mysaria's agents spreading stories about food in the Red Keep. This allows the Greens to be continued to be seen as in the wrong and further adds more evidence to the viewer that the smallfolk suffer under the leadership of the Greens and wish for their "rightful" queen to sit the throne instead. Just days earlier the smallfolk mourned with the Green Queens, but now they're with Rhaenyra and want to hurt them. This also allows the writers to take the parts of the book that say Alicent and Helaena were beloved of the smallfolk and officially brand those sections as "Green propaganda."

Overall, the deviation of the show from the source material is illogical and unreasonable given the information available. The blockade would not have resulted in starvation within weeks, due to alternate primary sources of food and the existence of food stores within the city. The smallfolk would be aware that the Blacks controlled and the blockade and would not praise them for a demonstration of such via one shipment of food sent through, especially following the recent funeral procession of Jaehaerys where the smallfolk learned of Rhaenyra the Cruel's character (and similarly, the sight of Meleys' head would not have motivated them to support Rhaenyra or mourn the "beloved" dragon as it recently murdered hundreds of them unnecessarily when Rhaenys refused to use the back exit to the pit so she could come face to face with the Greens at the coronation). If in actuality the blockade did in fact cause issues for the Greens, which it really would not have done, Vhagar would have been used to destroy it, lacking the threat of large dragons on the Black side at this point.

All in all, this plotline was not thought through and only serves to highlight the incompetence of the writing team and their ignorance of in-universe mechanics and implications and the world in which the story takes place.